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Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) closed at $214.54 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.04% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.29%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.26%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.22%.

Heading into today, shares of the company had gained 8.09% over the past month, outpacing the Finance sector's gain of 6.38% and the S&P 500's gain of 7.86% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from BRK.B as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, BRK.B is projected to report earnings of $2.71 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 2.87%.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $10.53 per share and revenue of $275.35 billion. These totals would mark changes of +4.78% and +11.1%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for BRK.B. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. BRK.B is holding a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that BRK.B has a Forward P/E ratio of 20.38 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.5, which means BRK.B is trading at a premium to the group.

Also, we should mention that BRK.B has a PEG ratio of 2.91. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Insurance - Property and Casualty was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.45 at yesterday's closing price.

The Insurance - Property and Casualty industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 63, putting it in the top 25% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.

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